Buffy Hamilton was not supposed to be the first guest on the show but I’m sure glad that she was.
Now, a few years back, I had first really gotten involved in the online librarian world through Leah White’s Young Librarian Series (and you can hear Leah on the show here, here, and also here). I had been getting more and more involved with professional activities on Twitter, including a stumbling attempt at keeping up a blog, and was looking for a way to contribute and participate more.
I had also been listening to a lot of podcasts, my favorite at the time being Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and realized that I wanted to hear an interview show featuring librarians. I searched around and while there were great library-related shows like T is for Training and Adventures in Library Instruction, they weren’t quite what I was looking for, so I decided to create it myself. Bobbi Newman was scheduled to speak at a local professional development event, and since I’d been following her work through her blog and Twitter, I got it in my head that I would interview her as my first guest. However, I couldn’t quite get everything together in time, so that fell apart (though Bobbi was a valuable asset for brainstorming and promotion of the show and I can’t thank her enough for that).
I had recently met Buffy Hamilton through social media and we clicked as colleagues and friends, and I was incredibly impressed with her efforts at her middle school library, so I asked her to be my first guest (I think she agreed because I was more interested in her Media21 program than her Kindle loaning program, which is all anyone else asked her about). The interview with Buffy completely set the tone for the show moving forward, despite some technical difficulties. My initial thought for the show was that I would ask questions and wait for the interviewee to answer, but it became more conversational, more back and forth, more engaging, helping it live up to its name.
I went on to interview many of the people I’ve looked up to in the profession that I never thought would agree to be on, like Sarah Houghton, Jessamyn West, David Lankes (not once, not twice, but three times!), the Unshelved guys, and the upcoming interview with Nancy Pearl. The show has been a tremendous source of inspiration for me, and I hope, for the listeners.
Thanks to all the guests who have appeared on the show over the past two years, to the guest hosts who helped me get through an exceptionally busy time, to all the colleagues and friends who have acted as sounding boards for crazy new ideas, to my wonderful listeners, many of whom came out to support the Kickstarter campaign, and of course my beautiful wife and kids for patiently putting up with me constantly making our printer unusable because my mic was using its USB port.
Post-ALA, the show will receive a few tweaks and improvements that I hope you’ll enjoy. Let’s keep circulating the ideas together.
Circulating Ideas 